Meal planning for the (very distant) future…(day 3 of the cleanse)

So today is the first day back at work and other than my green juice sitting next to me, everything is completely normal. Luckily the morning was pretty busy, so the time flew by before I was able to think about my hunger (or lack thereof). I made a super sweet apple, pear, and green grape juice for breakfast this morning, and a nice zesty green for lunch with celery, spinach, cucumber, lemon, apple, pear, and ginger. Since it’s such a gorgeous day out (temperatures reaching the upper 60’s and lots of sunshine), my friend and I decided to go on a walk during lunch. Walking on streets that I normally never set foot on led me to discover some tasty treasures lurking in my office’s backyard.

The first place we passed was Freshii. It looks like a wrap/salad/rice bowl bar that could be a vast improvement over my normal love/hate relationship with Pret and Chopt. Next, we saw a lobster shack and….A WHOLE RESTAURANT DEDICATED TO MEATBALLS. Of course it would be the brainchild of one of my favorite DC chefs, Michel Richard. With lentil and lamb meatballs in a morel mushroom sauce, this will DEFINITELY be a place to revisit.  

As we finished our walk, last but by no means least, we passed a Parisian bakery called Paul. We walked inside, which would certainly seem to be pure torture, and spotted perfectly pastel macarons, deliciously flaky pain au chocolat, and tartines and quiches galore.

Why would I subject myself to this culinary waterboarding? Well, surprisingly with the aromas of macarons and meatballs wafting in the near distance, my hunger pains are at bay and it wasn’t torture at all. While I can think fondly about the amazing gastronomical delights that await in a couple of weeks, I am not craving them. I am not sad nor jealous nor covetous of my coworker’s french fries. I am perfectly content with my jug of green. For my third day into the fast, I can’t think of anything I’d rather be!

xoxo,
the happenstance gourmande

I’m a mean green fighting machine…(day 2 of the cleanse)

I woke up this morning super early, although with the time change I guess it was more like regular wake-up time. I was surprisingly not starved. I didn’t feel like I had gone a whole 24 hours without eating. I barely felt like I’d gone 8 hours without eating. I made my morning hot water with lemon, relaxed with my new Vanity Fair subscription, chatted on the phone, and then made a fruit juice with green grapes, strawberries, and apples. After an $80 Giant grocery store run (I don’t think I can afford to do the cleanse AND shop at my normal Whole Foods–not to mention the willpower of dodging delightful aromas wafting from the hot bar) where I picked up additional supplies to hopefully last me for the week, I had tons of energy when I got back home. I put a load of laundry in and even felt an adderall-esque urge to clean out my fridge.

As lunchtime approached, I knew that it was finally time to try the Mean Green juice. In an effort to avoid the debacle of yesterday’s sludge, I decided to follow Joe Cross’ recipe to a tee. Here’s the recipe:

6 Kale Leaves
1 Cucumber
4 Celery Stalks
2 Green Apples
1/2 Lemon
1 piece of ginger

Surprisingly, it is PRETTY GOOD. I am not sure that I will call it enjoyable, but I’ve definitely had no problem drinking a tall glass of the stuff. I would describe the flavor as mildly sweet and slightly carbonated. Somehow the mixture of celery, lemon, and ginger is giving it a fizzy flavor. I don’t know if fizzy can actually be used to describe a flavor BUT I swear it tastes fizzy. It is not actually fizzy. That would be weird.

I feel great today. I don’t feel amazing like I have had some sort of life-altering moment and I look pretty much the same, but I don’t feel worse than normal which I think equates to great when subtracting the usual three squares a day. As for the detox, let’s just say that I know that the wheels are in motion. My stomach has made me acutely aware.

Tomorrow will be my first day of working while juicing and I’ve heard that day 3 is the worst day. I am a little nervous (I already know of 2 pressing projects for tomorrow morning, blah) but I think as long as I feel like I do today, I will be a-ok.

Wish me luck!

xoxo,
the happenstance gourmande

Let’s get this party started (everybody juice now)…day 1 of the cleanse

Last night, I went to the grocery store to stock up on ingredients, including carrots, kale, fennel, romaine lettuce, apples, pears, spinach, cabbage, ginger, and lemons. With my last supper in my belly (baby spinach, tomatoes, and avocado, followed by a banana and handful of almonds) I went to bed and said sayonara to eating for the next 10 days. I woke up this morning bright and early, completely prepared for my first day of juicing.

After finishing a nice cup of hot water with lemon, I was ready to begin. With a little trepidation about jumping feet first into green juices, I decided to take it relatively easy this morning and make a fruit juice with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and a gala and granny smith apple. It was DELICIOUS. I am a huge apple lover, so to be able to drink this was amazing.

                                           

I went out to Target at 9:30 a.m. which I have to say is a completely different world than the one I normally experience at 2 p.m. I found some perfect Rubbermaid one-pint jugs. reusable ice packs, and a cute pink insulated lunch sack for carrying my juice to work. This morning, I had a fairly normal energy level and did not feel super hungry.

For my mid-morning snack, I decided to try something a little bolder. A little greener. I made a fennel, cucumber, and pear juice.       

The juice was actually pretty delicious! The only problem was that toward the end of  my glass, I began to be very aware of the fennel and it overpowered my palate. I had trouble finishing and am not sure if I will be including fennel again.

After taking a nap, it was obviously now time to try a juice of the REAL GREEN variety, a mean green if you will. Fruit juice number one was excellent. Moderately green juice number two was fine. I think you know what’s coming next…Super green juice number three was…interesting. I started off by putting some kale into my juicer. The smell that came out of that beautiful handful was so off-putting that I could barely put a drop of the emerald-colored juice on my tongue. After an internal sad trombone, I scrambled through the fridge for any and everything else. I used some baby spinach, a quarter wedge of green cabbage, 2 carrots, a head of romaine lettuce, a granny smith apple, half lemon, and thumb-sized portion of ginger root to create this sea sludge pictured to the right.

It’s not that it tasted terrible. It didn’t actually. It tasted like a thick and slightly grainy gingered apple cider, with a big spoonful of dirt mixed in. Oddly enough, I just watched TLC’s My Strange Addiction where a woman loves to eat the really moist, earthy dirt. I am pretty positive she would have loved this juice.

The strangest part of this day is how hungry I am NOT. I had to force myself to “eat” my afternoon snack of coconut water and am now prepping myself to make a dinner juice. I think that I made extra-large juices during the day — 20 oz. instead of the 14-16 oz. — so perhaps that is why I am not desperately craving anything now. I am sure my appetite will not remain this way throughout the next 9 days, but I can only hope that the fact that I feel no different than a normal day on this first day of the cleanse is because my vegan pre-cleanse did something to help with the “detox symptoms” I have read about.

Here’s a little treat to leave you with (that I had to desperately RUN AWAY from at Target) and here’s to hoping for more delicious green juices in the future.

xoxo,
the happenstance gourmande

It’s a glorious day!

Literally. There are sunny blue skies and it is supposed to hit the low 70’s in DC today. Anyways, rewinding back to yesterday, my friend Meredith (whose amazing blog you should read is here) and I decided to do Jillian Michaels’ Ripped in 30 workout. After a waaay too long hiatus, we jumped back into these hellish workouts last week and did a round during lunch. Normally I find the workouts to be miserable, but yesterday I noticed that in addition to the usual pain, I was sweating WAY more than normal. Brushing it off as me being out of practice and the temperatures being warmer than normal in our office “gym” and wearing an incredibly thick t-shirt…I didn’t think much of it.

When I got home yesterday, while making my awesome salad, I turned on my “Dance Cardio” playlist on Pandora, which gave me some old-school Zumba dance mixes. After a few minutes, I noticed that I was actually jumping and skipping and shimmying around my kitchen at 7 p.m. (apologies to the deer and squirrels in the Park who were subjected to this) which is definitely not my general post-work M.O. After eating, I settled in to watch a NatGeo documentary about meth, and realized that I was exhibiting some of the same symptoms…except my drug is the pure veg!

This morning, I woke up to this glorious day BEFORE MY ALARM CLOCK RANG. With the extra time on my hands, not wanting to devote all two hours to Al, Matt, Ann, and Natalie on NBC, I decided to go to the gym in my building. I did an interval run/walk followed by a few minutes on the elliptical. In addition to the crack-like energy that I had, I noticed that I was SWEATING OUT OF CONTROL again. This time, it couldn’t be the humid conditions or a too-thick t-shirt. I’m thinking that my body is weirdly starting to detox. Pre-juice-cleanse-detox.

As I write this, I am enjoying my scrumptious breakfast, pictured above, but am still fairly overheated. Whatever is going on, I feel great and think that being vegan just might be a good way to go post-cleanse. I had a little bit of a panic last night about how I will stomach 10 days of juice…but if extremely obese people who eat McDonalds can do it, I think that I, who loves fruit like I love french fries, can hang. I hope.

xoxo,
the happenstance gourmande

And the journey begins….

So, like many others, after watching Joe Cross’ documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, and the recommendations from some fasting friends, I’ve decided to start my own “macronutrient” journey into the world of green juices. After a tedious hunt at all of the Bed, Bath & Beyond’s in a 50-mile radius, I was finally able to track down the Breville Juice Fountain Plus at a Baltimore-area BBB store. (Gotta be able to use the 20% off coupon, right?) Phew. Easter candy is out in full swing, and after a few (read: bags) too many of Cadbury Mini-Eggs, I was more bloated than ever and knew something needed to DRASTICALLY change.

Last Sunday, I decided to commit to a week of eating vegan in order to do a pre-cleanse before the actual juice cleanse begins. I went to Whole Foods, got one last grass-fed cheeseburger and a serving of their AMAZING croissant bread pudding, stocked up on all of my fruits and vegs and decided to get rolling. I got 8 lbs of navel oranges, 2 cartons of strawberries and blueberries, 5 mangoes, 5 avocados, 10 bananas, 2 lbs of broccoli, and a lb sack of carrots. After saying goodbye to my wallet at the register, and hello to nutrition, I was ready to begin.

So far, this week I feel AMAZING. It is Wednesday (the third whole day of my clean vegan eating) and I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I am going to give you a sample of my meal plan just so that you know what I have been eating to get me through.

Breakfast:
fruit salad of mango, strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe

Lunch:
quarter cup serving of short-grain brown rice
pinto beans cooked with carrots, mushrooms, onion, and garlic in organic crushed tomatoes with a can of tomato paste added
navel orange

Snack:
peanut butter by the spoonSful
banana

Dinner:
salad of organic baby spinach, grape tomatoes, raw carrots and broccoli, pinto beans, a WHOLE avocado, a little Cava hummus, and a dressing made of dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, and a little EVOO

Here is a picture of the delight that I am currently dreaming of eating tonight:

I have to tell you…not thinking about calories and just eating whatever I want, as long as it is a vegetable or nut, is fabulous. I am currently down FIVE lbs since Sunday and feeling great. Stay tuned to see how the week shapes up and the countdown to my juice fast (beginning on Saturday…eek!).

-the happenstance gourmande